Dark Hole in my Soul

By Ellen Frazer-Jameson

They live the dream but pay the price for having it all. Only love can redeem the pain.
Three generations of brave and beautiful women inhabit the twisted world of Dark Hole in my Soul.
The women share their genes, their grief and a predilection for choosing the wrong men.
The deepest secrets of their hearts are revealed as an emotional and searching journey follows
Caitlin, Kathleen and Serena from a rundown Brooklyn brownstone to the tumultuous streets of
Hell's Kitchen, and ultimately a grand Miami Beach bayfront mansion. The image is picture perfect
but the reality is shattered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Frazer-Jameson
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463929551

Ellen Frazer-Jameson

Ellen Frazer-Jameson is a journalist, published author in fiction and non-fiction and broadcaster. She is an International travel writer and to research material for her articles and books, she travels constantly between Europe and America and South America. She claims that being a writer is the best job in the world. " I dream it, create it, live it and then write about it," she says "The glamorous, wealthy, beautiful women in my books are not me - but I wish they were. They are aspirational and inspirational but ultimately real and flawed. My greatest pleasure is to invite the reader to share the story beyond the glossy images and see the pain and heartbreak that even the most successful women are often forced to endure. Especially when they fall in love." Ellen dances the Argentine tango to relax and passionately believes that the perfect romance with the man of her dreams is right around the corner. Love redeems all.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Another Day in Paradise

2. A Mother’s Prayer

3. Dancing in the Streets

4. Counting the Cost

5. Paying the Piper

6. Any Port in a Storm

7. Pass the Hat

8. If I Can Make It There

9. No Time to Say Goodbye

10. Matters of Life and Death

11. Facing the Music

12. Mother Knows Best

13. Baby Blues

14. Breath of Fresh Air

15. A New Start

16. Love at Last

17. Happily Ever After

18. Cruel Fates

19. Beloved Child

20. The Secret’s Out

21. Moving On, Moving Out

22. Prom Queen

23. Star Power

24. Spider’s Web

25. Dangerous Love

26. Fight or Flight

27. Pay Back Time

28. No Way to Treat a Lady

29. Reach for the Stars

30. Doctor Feel-good

31. Heart Wide Open

32. Feels Like Love

33. Eyes Wide Open

34. Tell It Like It Is

35. With This Ring

36. Battle of Wills

37. Wedding Party

38. The Heat Is On

39. Letting Go

Epilogue

AA Pledge Adapted to Cuba

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to an angel—the beautiful and inspirational Dr. Juliet Ray, a trauma surgeon at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. Juliet is without doubt one of the most gracious, caring and accomplished young women I have ever met. Truly beautiful inside and out.

She dismisses notions that she behaves differently than any other decent human being because it never occurs to her not to travel the extra mile to be of service. We did not meet in a hospital setting but I have her to thank for my recovery from a serious and life changing injury that I sustained during the writing of this book.

Without her compassion I would not be the healthy, happy and whole person I am today. Her husband of just one year, Eric Ray, a high-flying corporate lawyer, adores his Juliet, and the couple exude love and goodness.

Every woman deserves a champion and knight in shining armor. Their love story offers hope to all believers and romantics of that elusive Happy Ever After.

My thanks go to Clare Christian of Red Door Publishing and her creative team for their wide-ranging expertise and guidance. They never fail to come up with a solution. And The Book Couple for their calm professionalism during the production of this novel. Special thanks to Michelle Ruger who acted as editorial assistant and chief cheer leader.

Writing books is a pleasure but there can also be pressure and I offer my appreciation to friends and family members who consistently show up with support and encouragement. How lucky am I that there are too many to mention? I am well blessed. Life is grand.

With special thanks,

Ellen Frazer-Jameson

Miami Beach, 2015

1. Another Day in Paradise

A faceless member of the senator’s staff who had been on duty at the mansion all day adjusted his mirrored sunglasses and hissed into a concealed radio.

They’re here. The Lady has arrived.

A high-speed cavalcade appeared. Leading the pack, leather-clad motorcycle outriders on Kawasaki motorbikes, followed by the black and white cars of the Miami Beach police department; blue lights flashed, sirens shrieked. Their demanding presence cleared the fast moving traffic and allowed free passage to the American flag-bearing black ­limousine that transported the Presidential candidate.

With the end of their fifteen-minute drive from Miami international airport in sight, the convoy made a sharp left off the MacArthur Causeway. The limo driver drew the attention of his passenger to the bay-crossing highway immortalized in countless action movies, scene of spectacular car chases and explosive multi-vehicle pileups.

He enjoyed passing on the information that the MacArthur Causeway bounds the Port of Miami, home to one of the largest cruise terminals in the world, and opens up an exclusive entryway to the private gated community of Flame Island.

Jagged shards of lightning illuminated the Miami Beach waterfront and threw into stark relief the menacing cloud-filled sky as the sound of thunder rumbled ominously out over the ocean.

Rain began to fall and the tropical storm that had been threatening gave full vent to its avowed intention to obliterate all traces of the endlessly cheerful Florida sun.

***

Serena Perez cursed under her breath. Then out loud. Damn, damn, damn. For added emphasis, she raised her tone ever louder, but even her professionally trained voice could not compete with the raging torrent. She struggled to be heard above the howling wind that forced the palm trees to sweep and swirl and bow to the inevitable force.

Surveying the picture-perfect grounds of her estate on a private island in sight of the Magic City of Miami, she ­resisted the temptation to scream out loud. Her meticulous plans were falling apart. Framed in the doorway of the ­hurricane-resistant glass patio doors, one elegant hand resting on the silver door handle, Serena looked as if she was about to deliver a scripted piece to camera.

Welcome. Today, we are at the home of the super-rich and famous Miami television star, Serena Perez, awaiting the arrival of the Democratic Presidential candidate at an exclusive fund-raising lunch party. And the skies have just opened.

Serena knew how to handle drama, breaking news, and developing stories on the Entertainment Channel, the national network where she was one of the highest paid and most popular presenters, but this was different. This was personal. This was her life.

She had spent months planning every detail and now the weather had betrayed her.

She considered whether to add her tears to the rain-soaked scenario or give in to her feelings of frustration and indulge in a diva tantrum.

She dismissed the crying option. Her personal makeup team from the Glam Squad would never forgive her if she messed up the flawless work of art it had taken over two hours to create on her beautiful face.

Instead, she screwed her features into a decidedly ­unladylike version of her best screen face, bared her teeth, and clenched her fists in frustration.

Wait till she got her hands on her colleague, the chief meteorologist back at the TV station, who had assured her, No rain forecast. Today being the day of her ultimate social triumph. She vowed that every ounce of power she possessed would be utilized to ensure that nobody and nothing was allowed to rain on her parade.

Had she time, Serena would have gone up to the widows’ lookout at the top of the house to get a grandstand view of the storm out over the Atlantic. She tried to imagine how it would feel to be a wife watching for a fisherman or sailor husband returning from a voyage. If a boat was lost this was the spot at which the wife first knew she was a widow. Serena was not a widow but she might as well be, she reflected. Perhaps the finality of knowing your partner was dead would be less painful than the uncertainty of betrayal.

Today of all days she would not allow herself to be distracted. She would not climb the stairs and risk being subject to the elements. Serena was determined to ensure that not even one drop of rain would be attracted to her couture Valentino pink, purple, and silver-threaded suit.

Ignoring the popular fashion dictate of not wearing ­diamonds at lunchtime, Serena was decked out in spar­kling white diamonds at her throat and ears and on her engagement finger she wore a five-carat yellow diamond ring.

Detaching from the frantic activity going on in the Great Room that took up the entire ground floor of her mansion, Serena fixed her gaze on the private causeway, the only entry point to the exclusive island home.

Casa d’Amore, the Mediterranean modern prime piece of real estate, was an architectural palace regularly featured in glossy magazines and television productions under the heading Multimillion Dollar Mansions of the Rich and Famous. The subtropical home was visible behind sixty-foot high date palms and wrought-iron gold and black lacquer gates guarded by gold lion statues. Beyond the gates, tiled courtyards and manicured lawns, a magical Moorish wonderland of overflowing fountains and waterfalls, bougainvillea-draped loggias, classical marble statues, and decorated urns.

Welcome to Paradise.

Serena was anticipating the pleasure of inviting the ­Presidential candidate to a private guided tour. Woman to woman.

Out on the causeway, the official party was within sight of the Flagler monument, a white plaster obelisk on an island in the middle of Biscayne Bay. The railroad magnate Henry Flagler had been persuaded to bring his railroad south after pioneer Julia Tuttle sent him an orange blossom from Miami in the middle of the Northern states winter.

This early twentieth-century vision enabled the founding of the City by the Sea that would become a global showplace for art, fashion, culture, and architecture.

Serena kept her eyes firmly on the causeway.

A handsome senior member of the catering team appeared and in a carefully rehearsed game plan asked, Plan B, ma’am?

You got it, said Serena, forcing a smile and hiding disappointment that the VIP guests would not be entering her palatial home via the circular driveway that bordered the paved terrace.

That route would have taken them past the dancing mosaic tiled fountains, the marble statue of Venus, and the yacht moored on the waterfront.

Instead, they were to be chauffeured to the front of the columned residence and escorted up a hastily laid red carpet under a waterproof canopy. From there through cathedral doors into the Italian-tiled inner vestibule with hand-painted murals—the centerpiece, a glittering Venetian glass chandelier that showcased portrait-lined walls and the gilt handrails of a sweeping stairway.

Uniformed waiters dressed in democratic colors of blue and white were already in place, standing to attention along the steps to the front entrance. Balanced on one hand they held silver salvers offering crystal flutes of two-thousand-dollar-a-bottle Dom Perignon champagne and passion fruit mimosas.

Arrangements for the fund-raising event had been carried out with military precision, and as benefactor of a ­million dollar campaign donation, chairwoman of the organizing committee, and chief fundraiser, television celebrity Serena Perez had been granted a private fifteen-minute audience with the Presidential candidate before other guests were scheduled to arrive.

Akin to being granted an audience with the Pope, after the private time, other members of the organizing committee would be released from their pre-lunch reception where they had been served canapés in the Great Room and be allowed exclusive access to the presidential party for a ­further fifteen minutes. Only then would the remaining supporters, who had paid ten thousand dollars a head for the lunch prepared by celebrity chef Simon Hall from one of Miami’s finest restaurants, be welcomed into the reception. In an informal receiving line, guests stepped forward for a handshake and keepsake photograph with the candidate, one of the most recognizable and popular women in America.

Serena prayed that all arrangements would go smoothly. Time was of the essence and everyone had to do as instructed and keep on schedule. The candidate would be whisked away to her next appointment precisely forty minutes after lunch was served.

Out of the corner of her eye, Serena caught an unexpected movement as her personal assistant stepped out of the home office on the side corridor, made her way up the wooden floored corridor, and gestured to Serena that she needed to talk.

Striding to her employer’s side, she said, We have an emergency. The senior nurse at the hospice telephoned. Again. Your mother is very close to the end and she begs you to go to her. What shall I tell them?

Struggling to maintain control of her emotions, Serena affected a tone of determination she didn’t feel and said, Tell them ‘no.’ I am not coming. I need to be here. I’m not leaving till the party is well and truly over.

Her shaking hands betrayed her inner turmoil but Serena walked with purpose and poise to the wide-open front door to welcome her special guest. She pasted on her biggest, brightest television star smile.

Serena was conscious she had reached the pinnacle of her social standing. The Presidential candidate was a guest in her home and she was not about to relinquish the bragging rights she had worked so hard to attain—not even to satisfy the demands of a dying mother. If she dies alone, then it is all she deserves, Serena told herself with a hardness of heart she did not feel.

Showtime, she said under her breath as she stepped onto the red carpet and into the spotlight, presenting her best side for the official photograph and embracing her honored guest.

It’s not every day that the future President of the United States comes to call, she reminded herself.

2. A Mother’s Prayer

Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Perched on uncomfortable fold-up chairs, two nuns in floor-length black robes with white wimples framing their hairlines sat by the dying woman’s bedside. They fingered their holy beads and prayed the rosary.

In the cancer charity’s state-of-the-art hospice in New York City run by Roman Catholic nuns, it was a ritual performed day and night as terminally ill patients reached the end of their journey and prepared to succumb to death.

Difficult though it was to quantify the level of true conviction that a better world indeed awaited, most patients were of a religious persuasion and seemed to draw strength and comfort from the practice of a spiritual discipline that advocated prayer, priests, and preparation.

Inevitably, there came a time when the best medical treatment, tender loving care, and pain management could no longer hold back the ravages of terminal diseases. Even the best respite care and interludes of recovery offered only temporary relief, faint hope, and time to again await the finale.

Kathleen O’Shaunessey’s frail, diseased body left barely an indentation in the pristine hospital bedding, but her voice was still desperate to make itself heard. Struggling to sit up she stared directly at the nun on her right side, daring her to stop reciting her constant prayer.

Is she coming? she demanded for the hundredth time that day. Is she coming? The nun looked at her companion, an older and hopefully wiser Sister in Christ who might have a suitable answer.

A downright lie would not pass their lips, but given the circumstances a softening of the truth was designed to offer comfort to the patient and relieve her agitated state.

The decision to contact Kathleen’s daughter and tell her that the end was near had been taken earlier in the day. The priest had been alerted to administer Last Rites.

A point-blank refusal by her only known living relative to make a mercy dash to the hospital and see her mother one last time before she passed away had not been anticipated.

Genuine sadness for the dying mother whose request was being denied was tinged also with a disappointment that they might not get to meet her daughter, golden girl Serena Perez, a national television celebrity.

It seemed that everyone knew that Serena Perez’s mother was in the care of the hospice.

Though there had been no visits from anyone, the jungle drum had started to beat when a call from the television star’s office came to the administration offering to take care of the bills and giving a forwarding address in Miami Beach, Florida. Despite popular misconceptions about the American healthcare system, terminally ill patients even without insurance are not turned away—but if a willing ­relative offered to foot the bill, so much the better. Serena Perez was willing to do that much for her own mother. Still, many at the hospice hoped that the glamorous news anchor­woman would appear in person.

In a world of suffering, and with the ever-present specter of death hanging over the inhabitants, a touch of stardust would have been welcome.

Serena Perez’s high profile, nightly television appearances, her good looks, and ability to talk with intelligence and humor to anyone from presidents to victims of disaster and all manner of people famous and infamous, ensured her a huge fan club.

Unlike nuns in closed orders who live their lives in glorious seclusion, many of the nuns in the hospice movement had been in civilian jobs before entering religious orders. Their work with terminally ill patients in the community outreach programs gave them accessibility to the media and popular culture. They knew very well the name and image of the lovely Serena.

Despite their surprise at her refusal to visit her dying mother, none would have put their own disappointment at not getting to meet a celebrity at the top of a long list of reasons to be sad about the refusal.

The younger nun smoothed the bed sheets and gently cupped Kathleen’s hands inside her own as she endeavored to still the inner turmoil forcing itself out through the thin, purple-veined hands, which constantly twisted first one way then the other.

Is she coming? she asked again.

Shush, don’t upset yourself, the older nun said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, her tone as loving and soft as if she were addressing a fractious baby.

Expecting Kathleen to settle, soothed by their expert ministrations, both nuns were taken by surprise when she gathered hidden reserves of strength, threw her arms out wide, and almost knocked out both of them with one gesture.

The older nun moved a little more slowly than her companion, and Kathleen’s scrawny left hand swiped across the bridge of her nose and dislodged her large black-framed glasses.

Now there’s no need for that, she said. You’ll do yourself, as well as me, a mischief.

Turning to her nursing partner, she said, Call the doctor, maybe he will give her something to calm her down.

Summoned by his beeper, Dr. Jonathan Traynor appeared and as he entered the room he smoothed down his tousled red hair, knowing that with all the rushing around he did from ward to ward, up and down hot hospital corridors, it would be looking far from tidy. He didn’t consider himself vain but he did like to present a professional appearance, although this particular patient was past caring about how he or she looked. On his morning rounds, he had identified Kathleen as being in the late stages of her disease and in his opinion thought her unlikely to last the day.

Now here she was still raging against death, enough to be in need of sedation to take her back to the drug-induced coma from which she had so infrequently awoken in the week since she had been admitted.

But nothing surprised the handsome young American Irish doctor. He had seen it all in his few short years as a registrar on the cancer wards of the Sacred Heart hospice.

Good on you, Kathleen, he said. I can see you will not be going quietly into the night.

Kathleen clutched his hand and her once bright emerald eyes, now faded to a pale, watery green, pleaded, Is she coming?

Dr. Jonathan looked from one to the other nun and silently asked the question. They averted their eyes, avoiding answering.

Now, Kathleen, we are going to give you a little injection to help you calm down and when you wake up, well, we’ll see.

He nodded his goodbye to the nursing sisters and they prepared Kathleen’s intravenous drip to take the sedative. The insistent bleep of his pager could be heard demanding attention as his retreating footsteps echoed down the polished wood corridor.

In minutes, the effects of the injection subdued Kathleen’s nervous system and lulled her into a near unconscious state.

Only her interminable hand washing continued even in the deeper recesses of sleep and her voice demanded answers.

Her eyes flickered and a kaleidoscope of dreams and memories weaved a tapestry and played scenes from her life. Revisiting the days when she was the child, long before she had her own child. Dancing on the streets of New York while her father Padraic played the fiddle. Forgiveness. Kathleen had to seek forgiveness from her daughter. Before it was too late.

Hardly audible or intelligible, but by now so familiar to her caregivers that they had no doubt of the words she labored to express, Kathleen repeated her refrain.

Coming? Is she coming?

3. Dancing in the Streets

Pressing her nose to the grimy, cracked windowpane, Kathleen watched from the family’s dilapidated third-floor apartment at her handcuffed father being manhandled down the steep flight of concrete steps outside their home. They lived in a rundown, graffiti-covered brownstone building in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Padraic was being escorted by two of the finest from the New York police department.

Get your fecking hands off me, he yelled as he struggled to keep his balance, which in his intoxicated state would have been difficult even without his hands tied behind his back.

Fighting drunk and cursing everyone in sight, Padraic O’Shaunessey was well known to the uniformed cops. He spent many nights in the small, overcrowded drunk tank at the 68th precinct station. A court appearance and recurring fine completed the process and the judge’s admonishment to Lay off the liquor always fell on deaf ears.

Come on now, Padraic, Kathleen could just make out the good-natured cop, a fellow Irishman, attempting to reassure him, We’re taking you downtown to sleep it off. You’ll be right as rain in the morning. Apart from a sore head.

Under her breath, through gritted teeth, she mumbled an old Irish admonishment, Hell slap it into him.

Beyond caring at that stage, she was aware that the good cop act would probably not last much beyond their arrival at the station but at least her dad would be among his own kind. Half the cops in the NYPD were from his home county and some even the same town in Southern Ireland. He and they had left the Emerald Isle full of hope and in search of the better life in America and many of them had found it.

The O’Shaunessey family had not. A taste for booze and distaste for hard work meant that Padraic never even attempted to amount to anything.

Come away from that window, his long-suffering wife, Caitlin called out as she raised herself up on her elbow. She leaned forward to better make herself heard from the depths of the unmade, bug-ridden bed where she lay nursing her bruises. Her injuries, as usual, inflicted by her drunken husband.

Is it not bad enough that I have to bear the shame of the drunken eejit being arrested time and again? she pleaded in her soft lilting Irish accent. Her distinctive County Clare accent had never diminished despite nearly a decade and a half living in the States, Without you gawping like the rest of the neighbors?

As he was thrown in the back of the police paddy wagon, Padraic looked up to the grime-covered sash ­window that Kathleen had struggled to open a few inches. She pushed and pulled against the warped jambs and was careful to avoid getting splinters in her hands from the crumbling woodwork and flaking brown paint. Even with three floors separating them, she could see the fury in his blazing, red-rimmed green eyes.

Give the whore a message from me, he spat out, spraying the spittle that had built up in the corners of his mouth. Next time, she’ll be a dead woman.

Before he could repeat his threat the younger cop, who had no intention of pretending to be Mr. Nice Guy, grabbed his prisoner by the scruff of the neck and shoved him roughly into the caged back of the black prisoner transportation vehicle.

By the time he was released from custody, Padraic too would likely be nursing bruises. Funny how many times he was told by a totally credible police officer that in his drunk­en state he had fallen down the steps of the police station.

On returning home he would claim that he had no knowledge of what had taken place either there or indeed what incident had led to his arrest. What happened to you? he would belligerently ask his wife, deliberately turning his head from her bruised and swollen face and avoiding eye contact.

Kathleen vowed that no man would ever hit her. She could not understand why her mother allowed it to happen time and again. Why didn’t she leave? It was obvious there was little or no love lost between them. In the tiny cramped and scruffy apartment the three of them shared, the only communication was conducted in high-volume screaming matches and constant bickering.

Yet her husband of fifteen years claimed that when he had brought Caitlin over from Ireland to join him in America, he had chosen her because she was the prettiest and sweetest natured girl in the village.

Kathleen swelled with pride when people told her that she looked like her still beautiful mother. Not that she believed it. As a gangly fourteen-year-old feeling like the ugly duckling, Kathleen doubted she would ever grow into a beautiful swan. Her mother assured her that it was only a matter of time. Give time, time.

Que sera, sera, Caitlin sang the popular Doris Day song to her only daughter. Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, Que sera, sera.

Her father’s song was an obvious